The 5th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[Happy Chooks]

Everyone is talking about candling. YIKES! I did a quick check on day 3, I had to 2nd hatch and I set 43 eggs, and some of them I'm hatching for a friend so I don't even know if her eggs she got me were even fertile. So I had to look. So I'm not trying to hold out till tomorrow to candle again. My 1st hatch, I was good, I left them alone till day 7, 14, 18. But this one I can't help it I want to take a peek at them every time I rotate, I told my husband he will have to hide my mini flashlight.

Can you over candle? Just wondering. I'm probably going to candle them either tonight or tomorrow for day 7, and then leave them till 14, unless I have clears I will mark those to check at 10. Just thoughts on that.

You will get mixed thoughts on over candling. I look at it like this: The embryos are fragile when developing, so I only candle twice. Once somewhere between day 7 and 10 and once again on day 18. I figure the less you move them around, the better.

DH bday today, Good old school AppleCake in the oven! How many of your recipes are in terrible shape? I have about 10 that are so discussting! Its one of those things you never take time to rewrite them, now my grandmothers are a different story, I NEVER will replace them, I can feel her and smell the kitchen just look at her writing

Yummy! And yes, I have some recipes that resemble that. Happy birthday to your DH!

The box did not smell at all..not the eggs either..and man, they are just gorgeous! There are the OE's I have been wanting! And the blues! Darn, I hope some are ok. They are still under 2 weeks from being gathered..some say the 23 and 24th. May have a chance. Oh, found out why they are late..wrong address on the box.

A simple mistake..she put an East and a West ..plus, for some reason, there is a 1 marked through the O on the zip. So a couple of things throwing the P.O. off, even though it's clearly marked Utah..and the city too.

Set them! You may get a few!

Ready for the cuteness overload?


This is Speck. She was second out and out of a green egg. Yesterday I didn't think she had feathered legs but as you can see it does.




Then came Eno who surprised me this morning by having 5 toes. I'm not sure how I missed it, but I did.




And last for the chicks was Spice. It hatched completely unwatched. I saw all the others. And it has 5 toes as you can see.

Cuties!

not to toot my own horn, but today is my 37th bday. I am a chicken addict and cant wait for the little eggs to hatch the day before Easter.

Oh, my, gosh! Look at the egg I just found in my coop! It is next to my largest duck egg that I have! Should I throw it in my bator and see what happens?

I would not incubate it. Double yolkers rarely ever make it to hatch.

I'm so excited for my eggs to hatch! Hoping for a good turnout of paint silkies and paint showgirls from my flock. It's been a loooong time since I've been hatching.

Here are pictures of my group the eggs were collected from - all are either paints or offspring of paints:




(Just to ease your mind, the lattice is only a divider INSIDE the pens - they're quite safe in a well built coop with hardware cloth.)

Nice, congrats!

I am seriously going BONKERS here!!!! I have eggs in lock down... in the same incubator as my HAL eggs. I want to candle so badly but worry about shrink wrapping my eggs due to hatch. I want to know how my other eggs are doing but i suppose ill be waiting till monday or so (my eggs should be all hatched by then.... I hope).... these candling pictures are making me want to go see! ahhhhhhh!!!

Don't candle until those eggs hatch.

Speaking of processing equipment, I don't mind processing, but my scalding technique/resources leave a lot to be desired. Anyone have recommendations for an easy scalder situation for just a chicken or few? Boiling water on the stove just isn't really good for more than one. Don't want to set up a big water heater driving tub, but something in between? Do they make electric turkey friers or something?

You can put a squirt of dish soap in the water and it helps with plucking. I just boil water in my big water bath canner.

 

[daphneysmamma]

we do our first candle on the 52 eggs ( a combo of cochin, polish, dutch bantam, phoenix, and plymoth rock) I have in there Monday.. im excited.. I did get a 50% hatch rate on my first batch .. but they were 2 days late .. o well better late than never ! happy hatching everyone !!!

 

[sillycmoy]

You will get mixed thoughts on over candling. I look at it like this: The embryos are fragile when developing, so I only candle twice. Once somewhere between day 7 and 10 and once again on day 18. I figure the less you move them around, the better.

Well I only checked on my friends eggs really at day 3. And I will wait till tomorrow, and to them all at day 7. I don;t know why, but I just want to candle them to see how they are doing. lol

 

[misbhaven]

I only candle in place I can usually see except for the Maran eggs today had to play guess the stinky egg so i candled in place and only picked up the possible offenders...except for about day 10 or so then i candle out of place to see who is growing and who quit and again as place into hatcher for lockdown

 

[ronott1]

I only candle in place I can usually see except for the Maran eggs today had to play guess the stinky egg so i candled in place and only picked up the possible offenders...except for about day 10 or so then i candle out of place to see who is growing and who quit and again as place into hatcher for lockdown

I candle in place but will pick up the egg if it looks suspicious.

 

[Shayna]

I'm planning to candle mine tonight - It's 7 days!!

 

[Happy Chooks]

We are still missing a lot of egg set numbers!
Please continue to post in this thread the number of eggs you set.
We need to get all the numbers in to announce the winner of the first contest.

If you did not set any eggs, please post that as well.​

 

[gryeyes]

Okay, so I'm chicken! Lol. Think I'll wait til day 10 to candle. I don't want to be depressed if I don't see anything.

This is exactly why I don't candle until day 14. Plus, I only candle until I see the first egg showing development, then I leave all eggs until candling at lockdown. That's when I candle them all and remove the ones which haven't developed. I consider one live hatchling a success - a miracle! - although I do hope for two so there isn't a solo, lonely chick to raise. More miracles. It is my habit to assume none will hatch. That's just the way I am. It's so wonderful when eggs become living chicks. But I don't like being disappointed more times than I need to be, y'know?

 

[SoManyHats]

An update on my thermometer situation. I tried to calibrate my two accurite thermos by putting them outside and checking our home weather station. It was a difference of 10 degrees, which I think is probably due to microclimate differences. So I tried with room temperature, and again, way off. So then I calibrated my probe with both ice water and hot water/candy thermometer methods. It is about .3-.5 degrees low. But if that's true, then yesterday my incubator temp was 97 when my accurite said 100. But right now, the accurite is agreeing with the probe.

Right now, suddenly everything is agreeing again, and they all say 103! So I turned my temp down a teeny tiny bit, and I'll see what happens over the next few hours. This is maddening! I used these same accurites in my NYD hatch. Everything hatched on time, and the only chicks that didn't hatch were malpositioned. So I thought that was a good sign for accurate temps.

I would just like to know why they all suddenly start disagreeing, then suddenly agreeing for seemingly no reason.

 

[ozexpat]

An update on my thermometer situation. I tried to calibrate my two accurite thermos by putting them outside and checking our home weather station. It was a difference of 10 degrees, which I think is probably due to microclimate differences. So I tried with room temperature, and again, way off. So then I calibrated my probe with both ice water and hot water/candy thermometer methods. It is about .3-.5 degrees low. But if that's true, then yesterday my incubator temp was 97 when my accurite said 100. But right now, the accurite is agreeing with the probe.

Right now, suddenly everything is agreeing again, and they all say 103! So I turned my temp down a teeny tiny bit, and I'll see what happens over the next few hours. This is maddening! I used these same accurites in my NYD hatch. Everything hatched on time, and the only chicks that didn't hatch were malpositioned. So I thought that was a good sign for accurate temps.

I would just like to know why they all suddenly start disagreeing, then suddenly agreeing for seemingly no reason.

just out of interest was there anything else goung on - like new electrical equipment on in the area

also... your NYD malpositioned chicks... were they shipped and what was your turning strategy?